Thank You Better Homes and Gardens......

I recently started checking out Better Homes and Gardens website.  They have got some great cookie recipes right now for the holidays.  I tried this one out tonight....yum!  Pretty tasty, and in the shape of TEXAS!  Try them out...

Pumpkin-Spiced Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
1 17.5-ounce package sugar cookie mix
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 egg
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Browned Butter Icing--below
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine dry cookie mix, butter, egg, pumpkin pie spice, and nutmeg. Stir with a wooden spoon until a stiff dough forms; if necessary, knead to combine.

2. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Using a 1-1/2- to 2-1/2-inch cookie cutter, cut out dough. Re-roll trimmings and repeat cutting dough. Arrange cutouts 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake in preheated oven about 8 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. Transfer to a wire rack; cool. Drizzle with Brown Butter Icing. Makes 36 large cookies or 72 small cookies.

Brown Butter Icing: In a small saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons butter over low heat about 15 minutes or until browned (be careful not to burn). Remove from heat. Stir in 2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Immediately drizzle over cooled cookies (icing will harden quickly).

TO STORE: Place cookies in a a single layer in an airtight container; cover. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

The Legend Behind the Name

About a month after arriving in China DA and myself had a teacher who put a lot of work into giving us good, authentic Chinese names. When it comes to the Chinese naming system there are two things that matter most. The first is its meaning, and the second is it sound. So our teacher gave Daryl-Ann and I a list of about 5-9 names to choose from. Daryl-Ann did not like any of them and was nameless for another month or so, while I choose the last one on the list. The name was Luo Wen Feng (罗文峰). Luo being the family name, and Wen Feng being the meaning. Wen Feng can be broken down into its individual components. Wen 文 means language or literature, and Feng 峰 means mountain top. So all together I thought my name fit me well enough.

Then we got another teacher who thought Luo Wen Feng was too much of a mouthful and told me that simply Luo Wen sounded better. I like this lady a whole lot and figured that she would not lead me astray so I made the mental shift to drop Feng from the end of my name. From that day forward I introduced myself as Luo Wen.

Now over the next few weeks I have met numerous people who act really surprised when I tell them my name is Luo Wen. Come to find out there is a very famous canto-pop (pop-singer from Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese rather than Mandarin) singer named Luo Wen (English name Roman Tam) who was very popular back in the 70's and 80's. He is regarded the godfather of the genera cantopop. He died back in 2002. So I decided to give my predecessor a tribute by playing one of his songs right here on the blog. I hope you enjoy this rocking pop balled entitled 长城谣 (Great Wall Balled, literal translation). Its a tearjerker.

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If it doesn't work try this.

Experimenting

As you may be able to tell. I am doing my best to learn about how to use this silly blogging program, which in my opinion is not very intuitive. I am trying to figure out the best way to upload pictures, arrange pictures, etc.

Here are some pictures I took over the summer at botanical garden next to our university.

Good article on China

If your interested in this sort of thing. I skimmed it and it seemed pretty good. Here.

The Wingfeather Saga

Sometimes when a really good book or sermon comes a long I like to recommend it to all our readers. Today I am warmly recommending to you  a series that one of my favorite musical artists, Andrew Peterson, began a few years ago.

The first book is called On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, and I just finished it about a month ago. It is like Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia in that it can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It seems like it was written with all ages in mind. Anyways, it was a really gripping story that to my delight was not cheesy (I confess I half expected it to be). You can read more about it here.

The second book that was just released is called North! Or be Eaten, and I have yet to read it as getting these kinds of books in China is not easy (thanks to my mother-in-law who faithfully makes possible what would otherwise be impossible through frequent care-packaging), but based on all the reviews I have read I expect it to be just as enjoyable as its predecessor. More about it here.


So if you feel like you need to put down your heavy works in theology for a while and just straight up enjoy a gripping tale, it comes with my highest recommendation. I think it would also be a good series for family reading for those of you who have older kids (7-10). It can be pretty intense at times. I expect nightmares are still a reality as they were in my younger day.

DA seconds my recommendation.

LH

Fall Line Up

(I am pretty sure I wrote about this last year.)

Regardless of the fact that it is STILL HOT here.....and I don't think it is going to get any cooler any time soon (maybe for 2 weeks in December), I have found myself listening to Sara Groves and Andrew Peterson more and more. These two artists happen to be on my "fall line up" of music. I don't know why...it just means fall is here when I start listening to both of them more frequently. (Even though fall is not here by any means of a change in temperature...or a change in leaf color...or football....or the ability to drink hot chocolate w/o breaking out into a sweat....)

Anyways...do you have a band/artist/style of music that you swing towards when the seasons change (other than Christmas music, which would be an obvious one)? Feel free to comment.

--da

Mexican Food Night!

First of all, forgive the blurry pictures...not for sure what the deal is, but I just want to post and not worry about it.

Anyways, last Friday night we had the privilege of hosting two friends for Mexican food night. It was a delight, both the food, and the company. Here we've got homemade tortillas, homemade chips, homemade salsa, ground beef, and yummy Velveeta/Rotel. Our friends seemed to really enjoy everything but the cheese...but, I mean it is kind of foreign, I can't really blame them.

Here we are, about to enjoy dinner....it was interesting trying to explain that most of the words we were using to describe the food were Spanish, not English. (Burrito, taco, queso, tortilla.....)

After dinner....we chatted, Logan played a little mandolin for us, and we attempted to explain both Chinese and American humor. Much was simply lost in translation, although I did find it interesting that many jokes are centered around a play on words....you just have to know the words to get the joke.

--da

p.s. thanks to my friend julie who sent the rotel and velveeta! and thanks to my mom who taught me how to make tortillas when i was in junior high!

Chinese humor... demonstrated (cont.)

Okay I got my five guesses and I hope that everyone has been put on the edge of their chair in anticipation for this little taste of Chinese humor. If you don't know what I am talking about stop reading immediately and scroll down to two posts ago and you will see a Chinese joke/riddle. Then come back and read the answer.

So, what did the man say to the wolf that made him blow out the candle?.... 'Happy Birthday!'


I hope you are as disappointed as I was. I did my best to embellish this joke and make it sound as paramount as I possible could.

Just a little taste of the kind of humor I am surrounded with. What about wit and sarcasm, you may ask. Well so far my experience has shown me that the best way to get a Chinese person to chuckle is just straight up cheesiness. The more cynical approaches to humor don't communicate well, and usually result is lengthy explanations that completely destroy punch lines or quick witted one liners. Oh well, I think I have my fair share of cheesiness to go around.

LH

This post is officially dedicated to my Dad....a few pictures of the crazy things we see, often times not understanding at all why the way it is, is, well, the way it is.

I'm not sure if this truck died, got stuck, or just wouldn't technically go in reverse, but it was blocking the road, and all of these men were trying to push it back out of the way so that all those buses/trucks behind it, and all the cars in front of it, including our bus, could get through.

Along the way to a town Logan and I visited, we experienced some massive road construction.  It is like they said, "Let's just tear out the whole road all at once, but still let cars go through."  It took us 7 hours to get to a place that maybe should have taken 3.5 hours.  Anyways, here is a truck on the side of a mountain.  Literally, the side of the cliff was almost perpendicular to the ground, and this truck was doing something, but I don't know what.

I absolutely love electrical work here!  In this smaller village,                                   I think every house was wired to this box.

Here are three pictures of random ways to install things around the house.  The first one w/ the curtains is one Logan did....took some zip ties, a piece of some kind of electrical cord, and some nails, and hung some curtains to separate our kitchen from where I dry laundry.

Next, we've got probably one of the most dangerous (in my mind) ways of obtaining hot water.  This was our bathroom in YX, where we spent about 6 weeks studying.  Here, you can see there is a hot water heater installed in the bathroom, which was great, but the outlet for power for the heater was across on the other side of the room, where the water from the shower head could directly hit it.  I am sure that although this ranks high on the dangerous scale, no one has actually ever been hurt/killed by bad design/mixing water and electricity in the bathroom...

And last, but not least, a picture of how you install any drain pipe here.  This is our kitchen sink...it was actually broken, but a few weeks ago Logan replaced it w/ a much better one.  Regardless, the way you install a drain pipe is to buy pipe, attach it to the drain in the sink, and then stick the pipe into the hole in the floor.  Kind of gross/ridiculous/such a temporary fix in my mind, but that's how it is done.  Which, although ridiculous, made it much easier for us to install our own bathtub!  So I guess there are perks....

--da

Chinese humor... demonstrated.

A few days ago I was having a tea party with a Chinese friend (who speaks excellent English mind you) and he told me a riddle that I would like to pass on to you. After I receive 5 good guesses in the comment section, I will post the answer. So... take a stab at it and prove to us how Chinese you are.

There once was a man who was in dire need to get over a mountain. He determined that the best way to accomplish this difficult task was to climb a rope that was hanging down one of the cliff faces. Where the rope came from, he did not know. Nor did he care as he began climbing and climbing until he reached the very top and peeked over the edge of the cliff. He was startled to see a wolf holding a candle! Not only that but the wolf was gesturing to the man that he was about to burn the rope, sending this man to a most certain death. The man beckoned the wolf toward him and whispered something in his ear. The wolf immediately blew out the candle and the man was able to ascend the cliff's edge to safety. Whoo, close one...

What did the man say to the wolf that made the wolf extinguish the candle?

5 guesses then I will post the answer.

LH